Question: In the staircase-shaped region below, all angles that look like right angles are right angles, and each of the eight congruent sides marked with a tick mark have length 1 foot.  If the region has area 53 square feet, what is the number of feet in the perimeter of the region? [asy]
size(120);
draw((5,7)--(0,7)--(0,0)--(9,0)--(9,3)--(8,3)--(8,4)--(7,4)--(7,5)--(6,5)--(6,6)--(5,6)--cycle);
label("9 ft",(4.5,0),S);
draw((7.85,3.5)--(8.15,3.5)); draw((6.85,4.5)--(7.15,4.5)); draw((5.85,5.5)--(6.15,5.5)); draw((4.85,6.5)--(5.15,6.5));
draw((8.5,2.85)--(8.5,3.15)); draw((7.5,3.85)--(7.5,4.15)); draw((6.5,4.85)--(6.5,5.15)); draw((5.5,5.85)--(5.5,6.15));
[/asy]
Answer: We can look at the region as a rectangle with a smaller staircase-shaped region removed from its upper-right corner.  We extend two of its sides to complete the rectangle: [asy]
size(120);
draw((5,7)--(0,7)--(0,0)--(9,0)--(9,3)--(8,3)--(8,4)--(7,4)--(7,5)--(6,5)--(6,6)--(5,6)--cycle);
draw((5,7)--(9,7)--(9,3),dashed);
[/asy] Dissecting the small staircase, we see it consists of ten 1 ft by 1 ft squares and thus has area 10 square feet. [asy]
size(120);
draw((5,7)--(0,7)--(0,0)--(9,0)--(9,3)--(8,3)--(8,4)--(7,4)--(7,5)--(6,5)--(6,6)--(5,6)--cycle);
draw((5,7)--(9,7)--(9,3),dashed);
draw((8,7)--(8,4)--(9,4),dashed); draw((7,7)--(7,5)--(9,5),dashed); draw((6,7)--(6,6)--(9,6),dashed);
[/asy] Let the height of the rectangle have length $x$ feet, so the area of the rectangle is $9x$ square feet.  Thus we can write the area of the staircase-shaped region as $9x-10$.  Setting this equal to $53$ and solving for $x$ yields $9x-10=53 \Rightarrow x=7$ feet.

Finally, the perimeter of the region is $7+9+3+5+8\cdot 1 = \boxed{32}$ feet.  (Notice how this is equal to the perimeter of the rectangle -- if we shift each horizontal side with length 1 upwards and each vertical side with length 1 rightwards, we get a rectangle.)